1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an apparatus that warns a person of the proximity of another person and provides a means for contacting police or emergency services in the event that the proximity of the person is detected.
2. Statement of the Problem
More than ever in today's society there is an increasing need to provide secure perimeters around objects or persons that either require protection or pose a threat to others. Hazardous materials, such as toxic chemicals or radioactive materials, must be kept at a safe distance from people to prevent direct or indirect contact that causes injury or death. Weapons caches, classified projects and secure areas must also remain free from authorized access to maintain the integrity of national security or industrial secrets. Secure perimeters are necessary to provide sterile environments required by laboratories, the medical industry and electronics assembly plants. Similarly, the extremely high level of security in facilities that store large amounts of cash, jewels, or precious metals require boundaries that provide absolute protection for restricted areas.
In addition to keeping objects and materials safe, there is often a requirement to prevent contact between human beings. Dramatic increases in the number of domestic violence cases have resulted in record numbers of restraining orders issued by courts, enforced only by the threat of incarceration. Overcrowded jails and prisons have left local governments no practical alternative other than house arrest for all but the most dangerous offenders. Likewise, mental institutions constantly grapple with security issues, expending enormous amounts of resources to confine patients and search for and apprehend those who inevitably escape.
Current attempts to solve these problems have been costly, inefficient, time consuming, and have required enormous manpower. The number of prison guards employed by the average prison constitutes a small army, as do the security forces for most mental institutions. Defense plants spend millions of dollars annually for elaborate surveillance systems, using closed-circuit tv cameras, motion detectors, palm scans, and retina scans to monitor their employees. Costly background checks of employees, regardless of their involvement in secret projects, are conducted simply because an employee's work area might be within the same building or complex as a secret project. Similar resources are expended to protect the nation's mints and gold reserve, where employees must be monitored as carefully as outsiders.
The problem is more complex when the object or person around which a secure perimeter must be maintained is mobile. Transporting hazardous materials and precious cargos makes safety extremely difficult, as secure facilities that warehouse such items cannot be moved. The secure perimeter simply cannot be maintained when the only route available to transport the cargo is through a densely populated area. Transporting prisoners and mental patients between detention facilities provides an increased chance of escape, and complying with a restraining order is difficult when both parties are free to move around the same small town or neighborhood. The inherent mobility of human beings has made it impossible to develop a reliable method to monitor the location of the escaped prisoner or mental patient, or to warn the person protected by restraining order when the subject of the restraining order is near. While the ankle bracelet used to monitor people under house arrest verifies a prisoner's presence within a bounded area, this device fails to verify the location of the prisoner once he or she has left the boundaries of the restricted area.
There is a dire need for a portable device that will provide warning to a potential victim of a threatening person's proximity. In addition to such warning, a means for immediately summoning help is required to prevent harm.